California Bracing For Sequester Cuts To Special Education

The Huffington Post (3/11, Sankin) reports that the sequestration cuts could affect special education programs in California, relating the story of a San Francisco family with a severely disabled daughter. "The potential impact the sequester will have on the daily lives of the more than 36,000 K-12 students with disabilities in California show how the across-the-board budget cuts can have harrowing implications for millions in the U.S. It also reveals how government agencies, like individual school districts, increasingly face hard choices making the cuts with the least damage." The piece notes that the National Education Association has released an analysis projecting that "the $67 million cut in federal funding for California's special education programs will result in 671 lost jobs." The piece quotes NEA government relations director Mary Kusler saying, "There's no way at that level of cuts that children will not be affected. From our perspective, that's the greatest danger."